Lucky Number Eight!

Eight weeks down! I can't believe I've been at this for two months. I remember the first week, thinking, "I can't wait for this to be over." And now that I only have two weeks left of the challenge, I find myself wishing for more weeks. I've loved the entire experience of Farrell's FXB - there's a comraderie and such a huge support system in play that nobody can really fail at this. Just when you don't think you can't do another push up or pound the bag with another right jab/cross combo, there's someone, whether it's a teammate, coach or an instructor, urging you to push past the pain and find a new level of personal accomplishment.

I'm thrilled with the inches I'm losing and the smaller size of shorts I'm wearing, but what I'm most proud of is how much stronger I am now. Hauling the laundry up from the laundry room would wind me, running around the track even once, nearly made me collapse and the thought of doing more than ten pushups was ludicrous.

Now I'm bounding up the stairs with two laundry baskets, running a mile at a respectable pace and if we do less than 50 pushups in a class, I feel cheated. Can I leap tall buildings in a single bound? Well, no - I'm not super human, but I'm a stronger human than I used to be and that, I'm proud of.

To steal a lyric from that all too famous female anthem of the 70's.........

I am woman, hear me roar.

...and for good measure, watch me do some pushups!!!!

Two weeks to go. I can't wait to see who I am!

Aint It Grand!

It's finally happened! I ran into someone I haven't seen since the beginning of the summer and she said, "Holy shit Michelle - you look great. Have you been working out?" I kinda wanted to burst a little bit. I mean, I know I'm working hard and surely those efforts are yielding results, but sometimes what we really need is a wee bit of affirmation from someone else, someone who hasn't seen us in a while.

I told her I was enrolled in the ten week challenge at Farrell's. I recognized the look on her face; I used to have it. Fear mixed with horror. I think she was slightly surprised I was still alive. Frankly, so am I. She asked me if it was as intense as she's heard and if I felt like dying on a daily basis. I told her it's pretty much as tough as she's heard and that my desire to lay down and die ended after about week two. She asked if it was worth it - a thousand times YES.

Speaking of a thousand, what many might not know is that at the end of the ten weeks, there's a male and female $1000 winner. The man and woman who has the most dramatic transformation wins a nifty little prize to pocket. I was recently asked if I'm gunning for the prize. Here's the thing - by about week #3, I completely forgot that there was such a prize. Would it be nice? Sure, I guess.

But I've won. I mean, the ten weeks aren't even over and I already know I've won. I feel incredible. I'm focused. I'm energized. I'm stronger. I'm happier. It's impossible to put a price tag on any of that.

I think that's what many of us realize during this journey. We are gaining back ourselves, or maybe for some, we're realizing who we are for the first time. We're already winners!

I'm just about finishing up week #7. I've made it to every class (this I'm immensely proud of) and I'm upping my game each week. If I think I can't, I push through. That's going to take me well beyond the gym. I'm pushing through life, it's not pushing me.

Would I like to win the money? Well, hell - who wouldn't? I know this - the local retailers would be thrilled because I'd hit the department stores and get this new body a wardrobe it deserves! It's just not a driving factor; it's not what motivate me.

I motivate me. And I'm worth a million bucks.

We all are!

Less of me is making room for MORE of me!

It's hard to explain how much I'm growing while at the same time, I'm literally getting smaller. I don't think I had any idea what kind of changes I would go through when I first enrolled in FXB. Obviously, my desire was to get back into last summer's wardrobe and maybe firm up my belly and finally shed some of my baby weight. Babies that I gave birth to 21, 8 and 6 years ago. It's a convenient enough excuse, and a valid one - for about a year. I even had a leg up, qualifying it with, "the twins really wrecked my body". Well, the twins are more than halfway to highschool, so the shelf life of that excuse has definitely expired.

So, I figured - sign up for an intense workout program that costs enough to make me slightly fiscally weary and lose some weight for the last weeks of beach and shorts season.

What never occured to me was that I probably needed to lose some additional weight that has nothing to do with the size of my jeans or the numbers on my scale. We haul around a lot of life, which makes it hard to actually live it when we're so busy balancing it (barely) above our heads.

I'm lighter now. Lighter in ways I didn't hope to be, or even think I ever could be. I worry less about the future and pay really close attention to the present. There's so much good going on in my life right here, right now. I'm living in the moments that life is giving me; letting the past go and the future surprise me.

My kids are these spectacular people I'm discovering. I mean, yes I've always known how amazing they are, but I worried about all four of them incessantly and allowed those worries to strain how I see them. I see all of them now - for who they've become and the potential they each have in them. I'm a mother of a 21 year old, a set of 8 year old twins and a six year old. I see all four of them and because of that, I thoroughly enjoy all four of them. I didn't always - because I carried who they were and who they weren't, on my shoulders and the weight of all of that took a bit of the joy of being their mother away. I've unburdened my shoulders and opened my heart further. I don't know who or what my kids will grow into someday, but I know that they've got a great shot at whatever they want because I'm their mother. My, how they love me.

I'm lighter.

I took my marriage too seriously. Sounds odd, doesn't it? I'm a daughter of a divorced couple, which created in me an unhealthy expectation within myself to be so superbly perfect at being a married couple, I felt letdown frequently. My husband didn't let me down - not really. He's pissed me off, he's hurt my feelings, he's left dirty socks on the family room floor and his cereal bowl on the counter. But he hasn't let me down. My marriage hasn't let me down. It's been hard, it's been boring at times, it's been tedious even. But it hasn't let me down. I let myself down, but really only because what I expected from myself was unrealistic. I can't be perfect and I don't want to be. Letting that ridiculous shit go has opened up to me a wonderful marriage - it's fun, it's sexy, it's romantic and it's real. Still hard at times and on a Friday night when the old man has fallen asleep a half hour into movie night on the couch, it can even be a little boring. But it's mine and I'm no longer letting it down. My, how he loves me.

I'm lighter.

My mom's dead. That's so hard to say even still; at times, it even a little unbelievable. She and I - incredibly close. Maybe too close, I don't know. I miss her and I need her. Her death followed a rather short, but painful battle with cancer. I don't remember who I was before Mom got sick. I certainly don't think I was anyone poised to care for her, to carry her, to bathe her, to feed her, to walk the last mile with her and to let her go. But there I was, adding to my shoulders the weight of my mom. Five years later, and I'm still carrying her. I have been making decisions, raising my kids, planning events - with her in mind, hoping to making her proud. She's been gone for half a decade and I'm still looking for her approval, something she never denied me during her living years. I just still want it. It was there, her last night - enough to last me a lifetime. My mom is dead, and while I won't ever hear her say, "you're such a good (mother/ daughter/wife/friend/person), Shell" or "the world is lucky to have you in it", I have to believe it's what she'd tell me if she were here. And while it's not really - for any of us, it has to be good enough. I'm done living my life in search of someone else's approval. I've always had it and it's time to let go. My mom is dead. My, how she loved me.

I'm lighter.

I'm still a work in progress, but slowly, I hope I become the person whom I can really, truly see and think, "I want to be like her when I grow up."

I don't know if it's exactly FXB that has inspired this kind of soul searching or provoked me to unload some of this excess emotional weight, but I really do think that it's given me such an awesome opportunity to not only transform my body, but to let loose life's baggage that has been weighing me down. I'm making friends, I'm learning new ways to fuel my body and clear my mind, I'm finding my own strength to reach out of my comfort zone and to feel free to be who I want to be. My, how I love me.

I'm happier and I'm healthier.

And after week #5 testing, I'm officially 11 pounds and 10 & 3/4 inches smaller!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bet your ass I'm lighter!

Celebrating the Fourth

Well, sure it's the July 4th weekend, but I'm celebrating something even bigger! I've completed four full weeks of FXB, not having missed a single day AND (this is big!) staying completely disciplined with my nutrition. Clearly, that's been the hardest part of this, even still. It's a bit jarring to me how easily and thoughtlessly I used to grab a handful of chips or a snack on a bowl of M&Ms. Now, I'm constantly putting careful thought into meal preparations and making sure I'm actually eating enough.

The nutritional plan FXB has taught me isn't about counting points, cutting out out all fat, eating a week's worth of cabbage soup (whoever came up with that recipe is a sadist) or mixing cayenne pepper and cinnamon in some tea concoction to cleanse my system. It's about learning that carbs can be good for you and that protein is what my body has been craving. I'm not starving myself on celery. I'm learning how to create healthy meals that don't taste like cardboard. It's liberating to find that I'm starting to enjoy eating healthily and that I find the challenge to learn new ways of cooking kind of fun.

Let's not get out of hand here - it is, afterall, July 4th weekend. Annual barbeques, coolers stocked with cold beer, blenders of margaritas, buffets lined with potato salad, brownies, chips, baked beans, burgers and hotdogs. Did I fill up my plate and enjoy a few cocktails? Absolutely. But, without guilt or regret, because I knew how easily I would be able to get back into my newer, healthy habits.

It's amazing what I've learned in such a short amount of time. Aside from learning new ways of eating and cooking, I've also learned that in making those choices, I'm not feeling deprived or starved. Rather, I've discovered that I've been depriving my body of feeling like this for too long. The easy grabs out of the cookie jar held me hostage to a sluggish body. I know I won't always go for the lean turkey burger over a loaded chili dog, but I know that I will give it careful thought and make a choice based on how it will make me feel. I'm confident that I will more often overwhelmingly go for the healthier options, so that chili dog will be an occasional treat and not the status quo of my dietary habits.

What a feeling - a little bit like Independence Day. Celebrating my own personal freedom.

Happy Fourth to ME!